Report: DR. STRANGE Movie Has A Shortlist For Directing Duties

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It appears that things are finally moving forward when it comes to Marvel Studios’ adaptation of Dr. Strange; according to The Hollywood Reporter, a short-list of four potential directors has turned up for the project – Mark Andrews, who co-wrote and co-directed Pixar’s Brave; Nikolaj Arcel, who wrote and directed A Royal Affair; Dean Israelite, the director behind the upcoming sci-fi time-travel movie Welcome to Yesterday; and Jonathan Levine, the filmmaker behind Warm Bodies and 50/50. Jon Aibel and Glenn Berger, the writer team behind the Kung Fu Panda movies, are in talks to write the script. For many years, Marvel was working off a draft by writers Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly, but it’s unknown how much of that version will remain intact. According to the original story, “Marvel is looking to hire both a writer and a filmmaker to work in tandem, or a filmmaker who can do both tasks as it focuses on the hero first created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in the pages of 1963’s Strange Tales No. 110.”

With Ant-Man coming next year, Dr. Strange will be the last of the iconic Stan Lee created properties from the Silver Age heyday of sixties Marvel to finally get its own movie. (I’m not counting Black Panther or Inhumans, who were created primarily as supporting cast in Fantastic Four, and only ever had short lived success as their own titles.) Here’s hoping Stan the Man can keep chugging along to make it in a cameo capacity for Dr. Strange as well. No mention is made of Johnny Depp as had been previously rumored, but I wouldn’t count out the option for him to become the Sorcerer Supreme just yet.